The Indego Africa Project is helping Rwandan women to end the cycle of poverty. Matt Mitro, founder and president of Indego, finds women’s co-ops in Rwanda to support financially and trains the women to become self-sustainable. Indego comes from the first two letters in Indego’s core values: independence, development, and governance.
Mitro set Indego apart from other African craft nonprofits that sell things in the US by adding a business-education component. “We’re not about distributing money. We’re about giving women the opportunity to access markets and education,” Mitro says. He wants each co-op to eventually become self-sustaining and developed a program called Hand Up to facilitate this goal. There are four stages of co-op development in the Hand Up program:
(1) dependence on Indego;
(2) formalization of structures and processes;
(3) diversification of product line and supply chain partner; and
(4) functional independence from Indego.
On an individual level, Mitro offers the women a series of training programs focusing on organizational and financial management, computer usage, literacy (in English and Kinyarwanda), and entrepreneurship.
Indego Africa’s literacy initiatives in English and Kinyarwanda are essential to the independence of these women. The initiatives focus on developing a business vocabulary, an invaluable skill for women who may have been excluded from the formal education system.
One example of this success can be seen in Emelienne Nyiramana, the founder of Indego’s first partner co-op Cocoki, Rwanda. She was recently accepted into Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women initiative allowing her to attend Rwanda’s School of Banking and Finance. Even more incredible is the fact that her husband has accepted her role as a businesswoman and agreed to watch their children while she attends school. If more stories like this emerge, IAP could help to expand the concept of gender roles in Rwanda and eventually spread its model throughout Sub-Saharan Africa!
I've been interested in Africa since I can remember, but I can't remember why. Maybe I learned about ancient African empires in school or I heard about people who had been there and loved it. Whatever it was, I had been wanting to go somewhere in Africa for a long time. Last year, I finally got my chance. I spent three and a half months studying abroad in Mali, West Africa and had the best semester of my life. Since then, my interest in Africa and its development has only grown. Trying to find jobs or volunteer opportunities with a worthwhile organization in Africa can be daunting, and I wanted to start this blog to help others like me find out what works and what doesn't in development in Africa. Feel free to comment on anything in the blog. I would love to hear your feedback!
Hello all!